Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To not see why people are so annoyed...?

365 replies

curiousgeorgie · 29/07/2014 23:31

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2709730/Richard-Dawkins-sparks-outrage-Twitter-debate-saying-date-rape-bad-stranger-rape-worse.html

Sorry for the daily mail link, I know some don't like that.

I think I agree with him and I don't think it takes anything away from victims.... Am I wrong?

OP posts:
OxfordBags · 31/07/2014 19:56

Jux, there are no words for how shit that is Sad Angry

Appletini · 31/07/2014 20:27

I am stunned that anyone has the audacity to take about rape without violence.

Rape is violent.

I can't read this thread any more.

TheGoop · 31/07/2014 20:48

When someone's first thought, on hearing about or discussing rape, is to start talking about how many different ways rape may not be rape and start listing off reasons why consent may be 'blurred' then THAT is defending rape.

Why would that be someone's first or even second response?

CrimsonPermanentAssurance · 31/07/2014 20:49

I don't actually want a fight oxford, because I'm truly not here as a rape apologist and your post has really made me think. I guess you're implying that the concept of capacity for consent is just another way of putting the focus on the nature of the victim rather than the crime, so that stripping the definition back to "real consent" would keep it more focussed on the criminal act? I get that that makes sense. Are there any areas where that would cause problems in court? None leap to mind.

OxfordBags · 31/07/2014 22:31

EXACTLY, TheGoop! Exactly.

Crimson, you might genuinely believe that you're not a rape apologist, but you are spouting classic victim-blaming rape mythology. There's some deep internalised misogyny going on there. I'm not implying anything, I am TELLING the truth that there is either consent or non-consent. 100% of the onus, and of the responsibility is on the rapist. There is only 'real consent'. If you genuinely believe in that there is a 'capacity for consent' that could explain or excuse any rape, then you are deeply, deeply troubled.

For rapists, just being a human identifying as female is enough 'capacity for consent' to rape.

Also, has anyone noticed how women have absolutely no problems with understanding the sexual consent of others, male or female? I mean, a very tiny proportion of women rape other people,but how come it's a given that women have no issue with understanding others' rights and boundaries and consent, but many men supposedly don't, or somehow find themselves 'accidentally' or 'mistakenly' raping women? Hmm Instead of trying to placate misogyny by dreaming up ludicrous excuses for why women have some culpability in rape, or that some rape isn't so bad, how about focusing on the difficult truth? Which is that society is essentially set up to encourage men to rape us, and that far too many are all too happy to comply. Why not try looking at how come so many men rape and abuse, instead of women's part in rape?

FreudiansSlipper · 31/07/2014 22:41

Why not try looking at how come so many men rape and abuse, instead of women's part in rape?

totally agree

MostWicked · 31/07/2014 23:39

I am stunned that anyone has the audacity to take about rape without violence.
Rape is a violent offence. Some rapes have additional factors that make them more violent. That additional violence is recognised in sentencing.

MinginInTheRain · 01/08/2014 08:17

As an aside I have just read his actual article.

He says he was mildly abused as a child... Hence his distinction between mild and serious paedophilia.

Sounds like he is in denial about something and needing to justify his own feelings of "what happened to me wasn't so bad".

Would be sad if he wasn't such a twat.

TheRealAmandaClarke · 01/08/2014 08:43

There are always degrees.
someone steals your laptop from your workbag on the train
Someone steals your laptop from your kitchen while youre out
Someone steals your laptop from your kitchen while youre in the house with your children
Someone steals your laptop from your kitchen and trashes your furniture in the process.......

They are not the same. The theft of the laptop is still the same. And still stressful and upsetting, even without being a violent crime. The associated behaviours can make one situation "worse" than another.

Someone murders a man.
Someone murders a man but tortures him first.

The second would be considered by most people to be worse without minimising the horror of the first.

I think one of the problems is with the term "date rape". It does diminish the rape because there's a suggestion that you might well want to have sex with this man, so is it really that bad if he just "takes it"?
Well of course it is really that bad.
Amd its not just a matter of confusion about consent. I think there is a belief by some ppl that women often use an accusation of rape if they regret having sex with someone.
But there is a view that women (and girls) are there to be had by men.

And that is the root of the problem i suppose.

MostWicked · 01/08/2014 10:42

Sounds like he is in denial about something and needing to justify his own feelings of "what happened to me wasn't so bad".
So he is wrong to think that his abuse was only minimal?

I wrote earlier about how my exh used to have sex with me without my consent. I neither objected nor cooperated - he described me as a rotting log so it was pretty clear that I didn't want to have sex. Some people would describe that as rape and be traumatised by it. I don't feel that I was raped and although it was a horrible experience, it wasn't even in the same league as some of the experiences that other women have described in this thread. I am allowed to feel indifferent about my own experience without being in denial. But it would be equally valid for another woman who experienced the same thing as me, and feel that they had been raped and feel lasting effects. We all process things differently. There is no right or wrong way to feel about an experience.

But some offences are clearly worse than others. In sexual abuse, there is a very wide range of abuse, from offences that many would consider "mild", to incredibly serious offences. "Mild" can only be used as a comparator on a scale, when it is accepted that the starting point of that scale, is bad/unacceptable/horrible.

Amanda I think your post was very articulate.

LineRunner · 01/08/2014 11:02

The problem remains that the definition of 'mild' is 'not serious'.

MostWicked · 01/08/2014 11:51

I agree LineRunner. Mild is a very poor choice of words (and I think he acknowledged that), maybe he should say that he suffered less serious sexual abuse, but I'm not sure that's much better.
Similarly to the PP who described an 'unfortunate sexual encounter' (IIRC), that other people would describe as rape, and my description of sex without my consent, that by definition is rape but I would never describe my experience as such.

PhaedraIsMyName · 01/08/2014 13:06

I am allowed to feel indifferent about my own experience without being in denial... There is no right or wrong way to feel about an experience.

I'm the other poster you refer to and that's exactly how I feel. I don't recall when I last thought about it other than replying to this thread.

FreudiansSlipper · 01/08/2014 13:09

but for him he feels that it do not have a big impact on his life

another person could have a very similar experience and feel it has a huge impact on their life and has issues regarding trust and sexual relationships

this is when rapes/sexual abuse are compared which he did is wrong because you or I can not decide the impact it has on a person. the perpetrator also made a choice not to care so if they have been beaten before they have been raped or not the rape has still occurred and the victim has to live with those consequences which for many can be life changing

chockbic · 01/08/2014 13:09

How can a rape be mild? There is always force involved.

Perhaps the rapist offers tea and biscuits afterwards?

TheFariesAreBack · 01/08/2014 13:14

I would be interested to know what people think would = a specifically mild rape

Theherbofdeath · 01/08/2014 13:17

One thing that's struck me on this thread, from one of the posters, is the belief that there are "rapists", the minority of men who see women in a certain way and rape them when the opportunity arises, and "normal men", the majority of men who would never dream of raping a woman and who fully understand whether a woman is consenting or not.
Is it that clear cut? For instance, I'm thinking about all the pro-rape pornography that I gather from other threads is all over the internet, and is routinely looked at by men from teenagerhood up. Is this leading men who would not otherwise have raped to develop a certain view of women and what women want and what is the norm in sexual relations?
Similarly, I think that men sometimes rape in a group when they would not think of raping alone.

chockbic · 01/08/2014 13:23

Good points, herb.

It seems that more and more extreme porn is becoming the norm.

Women are degraded in this way and through music. It has to filter down.

Boys and young men really need to be educated about this but I'm not sure its happening.

MostWicked · 01/08/2014 14:24

I would be interested to know what people think would = a specifically mild rape
I said a few posts back that 'mild' is a poor word, but it can only be used as a comparator on a scale, when it is accepted that the starting point of that scale, is bad/unacceptable/horrible.

OxfordBags · 01/08/2014 14:44

If a man rapes as part of a group when he wouldn't rape when he is alone, then he is still a rapist. If someone watches rape porn and is inspired to rape, then he is still a rapist. Rape does not occur in a vacuum, there are always reasons and factors that lead a man to rape - because there is no accidental rape. There are reasons but never excuses. Nobody except the rapist puts their penis (or hand, or object) into the body of another person without consent. They are not being forced to do it.

chockbic · 01/08/2014 14:48

I want to know why Richard Dawkins won't condemn mild paedophilia. Whatever that is.

Why isn't the word mild used for other types of crime? Don't think I've ever read of someome being mildly assaulted or mildly burgled.

OxfordBags · 01/08/2014 14:51

Posted too soon. Want to explain further...

I do believe that porn is a huge problem and that most people just refuse to accept is dangerous and wrong, or accept the extent of how bad and influential it is. Group and peer pressure is also a worrying factor. However, these are only two very obvious examples of how society and culture as a whole give men the message that rape is okay, and that certain things aren't rape, and that consent is automatic if someone identifies as female, etc. (thankfully, most pay no attention, or, t least, don't act on it). The horrible types of porn, especially rape porn, exist because we have a society that makes these things desirable or normalised for some.

Boys and men are being influenced by misogyny every day, but it's not just the blatent things like hardcore porn, it's in the way males are allowed to treat women in the most mundane aspects of life. Rape is about power, control, domination, and dehumanisation, and males are taught to do this to women from a very young age.

OxfordBags · 01/08/2014 14:52

*blatant, not blatent, FFS.

OxfordBags · 01/08/2014 14:58

Chockbic, because 'mild paedophilia' is the term he came up with to describe the abuse he himself experienced at public school, and he needs to keep telling himself that it wasn't so bad in order to not address what a man whom he liked, admired, and was dependent on, chose to do to him. He's essentially minimising rape and abuse just for the sake of maintaining his own cognitive dissonance.

TheRealAmandaClarke · 01/08/2014 15:06

Does he explain what happened to him?
Was it a peer (by which i mean a fellow pupil) or a senior person or a teacher?
Anyway. The devil is often in the detail.
Not sure i want to read the detail though.
Sad